Fascinated
by cherryredxx
Summary: He fascinated her more than she liked to admit. For OTP Boot Camp.


He fascinated her in more ways than she cared to admit.

There was something about his eyes, grey and pale like moonlight, so full of emotion. His whole being was stoic and expressionless, but not his eyes. Not those beautiful eyes. In them she could see the spark of humanity that remained in him. She could sense his amusement, his irritation. Every emotion – every glimpse of hope, every second of solace – was so clearly visible in him if one knew where to look.

His lips were hypnotizing. Whenever she said something that he disapproved of, he would scowl. Whenever he was feeling cocky and confident, he would smirk. Very rarely did he smile, but when he did, his smile would light up his face in a way that could not be replicated. There was just something so enticing about his expressions.

She loved to look at his hands. The way he carried himself – his posture and poise – was graceful, but all of that needless forced confidence seemed futile to her when she looked at his hands. No matter what words he said, no matter how proudly he carried himself, she could always tell if she had hit a sore spot by looking at his hands. Whenever she found a weakness, they would shake. It was subtle, but not for someone who knew where to look. His hands were almost as full of emotion as his eyes.

This man, who seemed so self-assured, had flaws, and as a woman and someone who he had considered an enemy, she loved to exploit them. As a professional, she knew it was her job to get to the heart of them, to help him overcome them. And as a human being, it was in her nature to feel sympathy for the kind of life he had lived.

He sat across from her on the plush sofa. Normally he would lie down across it, lounging about with his arms folded behind his head, staring lazily across the room to demonstrate his disinterest for their sessions. He had no qualms about pointing out to her that she was useless and that talking to her did absolutely nothing to help him. He would still talk to her about his day, about the week he had had so far, about the weather, and about the mindless ins and outs of his day, but he wouldn't discuss his reason for being there. The heart of his problems had remained untouched despite her efforts to spark that particular conversation.

But this day was something different. _He_ was different, very tense. His expression was particularly even, and this was perhaps even more frightening to her than anything else. It was not uncommon for his face to show very little, for his lips to be without mien, for his hands to be still and clasped without tremor. It was strange, though, for her to notice nothing in his eyes. Not even a hint of sadness, of longing, of excitement, of anything.

She waited for as long as she could to speak, wanting to give him as much opportunity as possible to open himself up to her on his own, but in her heart she knew that this was fruitless. He had no intention to do so. She needed to have the first word.

"Draco?" she prodded gently, breaking the silence for the first time in nearly twenty minutes. "Draco, is there something you want to talk about?"

For another few minutes, he remained completely silent. She would have been able to hear a pin drop with the utmost clarity. The silence was deafening, and his lack of retort or sarcastic remark told her more than any of his words could have. It was an epiphany for her to realize that he was so incredibly broken that he had nothing at all to say.

He swallowed visibly. She could see his Adam's apple flinch in his throat, the brief second in which he closed his eyes to hold back the stemming of tears.

It was very obvious that he was in pain.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off with two words that nearly made her heart stop.

"She's dead."

There was a pang in her chest the moment those words fell from his lips. That was not at all what she had expected him to say, and for several minutes she had no idea how to respond. Though he had been coming to sessions twice a week for nearly three months, she had never managed to ever get any real information about his life out of him. It wasn't as though he'd ever talked about anyone aside from himself. She had no idea who in his life was truly important to him, no idea that he'd considered anyone in his life to be significant aside from himself.

"Who?"

Draco swallowed again. "Mother."

And for the first time, she was at a loss for words. Her own mother was alive, and she felt in her heart that it would have been terribly wrong for her to offer words of condolence when she had no idea what he was feeling.

"Would you like to talk to me about her?" she asked, hoping that she could get him to finally open up.

His eyes locked with hers, and for a brief second, she felt a shudder go through her body. His grey eyes were smoldering, fierce, and so very much alive.

"There's not much to say about her, _Ginny_," he said, his voice just a little cold. "She's gone."

Ginny shook her head at this and set aside the book that she held, the one she used to scribble down notes about each of her patients so that she could remember exactly what they had talked about in precious sessions. But she knew that she would have no trouble remembering what she and Draco spoke about on this day.

"That's not true," she said, leaning forward in her chair so that she could sit on the very edge of her seat. Though she had always paid very close attention to him, she needed Draco to know in that moment that he had her full attention. "It doesn't matter where she is. You can always talk about her. Did you have a good relationship with her?"

He shrugged, letting his eyes fall just to the right of Ginny. He would never look down at his feet as a show of weakness, so he let his eyes fall away only slightly, not looking at her directly, hoping that she would not notice how he was unable to match her gaze, unaware of how much attention she truly paid to him. "We had a good rapport," he answered finally. "We were rather close, I suppose," he amended.

"Well, tell me something about her. Tell me something that the two of you enjoyed doing together. What will you miss the most about her?"

His gaze flinched briefly as he closed his eyes. "We used to spend every Saturday together, just the two of us," he answered, his voice unwavering despite the glisten in his eyes. "When the weather permitted, we would go for a walk in Diagon Alley, or we'd spend the afternoon in her garden drinking tea."

"Sounds lovely."

"Sure."

Ginny bit her lip as she sat with conflicted emotions. She needed to get to the core of his grief if she was going to help him heal, but it was heart wrenchingly painful to think about pushing him to speak. The last thing she wanted was to force him to his breaking point. But he spoke again before she had a chance to drive him one way or the other.

"When it rained, she would listen to me play the piano," he continued. "I used to take lessons when I was young, before I began school."

"I never knew that about you," Ginny said, excited that he'd mentioned his childhood for the first time in their sessions. "Did your mother give you lessons?"

He shook his head. "No, no. She was never a great pianist. Father gave me lessons at first, and then when he no longer had time for me, he found me a tutor."

His father. Another first, she thought. "I just can't picture your father playing the piano," she said, her voice smiling with good-natured humor. "Was he very good?"

Draco shrugged. "I suppose he was rather talented, although he didn't have a lot of patience as a teacher, for piano or anything else really."

"Oh?"

"There were lots of things I wanted my father to teach me," he continued, once again without prompting. "We had horses at the Manor. I had always asked for him to teach me to ride them, but he always had excuses for why he couldn't take me out. I ended up teaching myself when I was seven or eight. Father wasn't very happy about that."

"Why not?" she asked.

He shrugged again. "He said that what I had done was dangerous."

"And what did you say to him?"

"Nothing really," he said, his eyes flickering with suppressed emotion. "It was difficult to reason with Father."

There was something there. Something in his eyes. Ginny had always had an inkling that the heart of his problems had been buried deep in his childhood, had been tucked away soundly where he would never need to discuss them. But the Wizengamot-mandated therapy sessions had come in with a shovel, and Ginny had been ready and waiting for the opportunity to use it.

"Why do you say he was difficult?" she asked.

And just like that, Draco had closed himself off once more. "I thought we were discussing Mother today," he said sharply.

"Okay. Tell me more about your mother."

"What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you want to tell me about her. This is your time, your safe space."

He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of what he had originally intended to say, and then stopped. He got up from the sofa and paced the space in front of it a few times before narrowing his eyes at his therapist. "This is a useless conversation," Draco said, anger apparent in every word. "My mother is gone, dead, and she's not ever going to come back. What use is it to speak of her? What good would telling you that she was an alcoholic, that she had a bloody awful relationship with my father, that even though I loved her more than anyone else in my life, that she had always privately resented me because I looked so much like _him_… what – what good is that?"

His eyes locked with hers briefly, pleadingly. He wanted her to stop him from talking about his parents, about his childhood, about everything and leave him to mourn her in his own way, to leave him the bloody hell alone and allow him solace in his quiet moment alone, but he knew that she had no intent to allow him to let go. This was the first time that he had made progress with her, and he did, on some level, recognize the significance of that, but he didn't care in that moment about the headway that was being made.

He cared only of his loss, of his grief, of his life falling apart around him.

"Draco," she said, her voice quiet although unapologetic, "it is very important for you to mourn your loss when you are ready to do so." Her voice was still, unwavering, but her whole body shook with the knowledge of what she had unleashed in him. He had been so predictable, so callous, so obviously holding everything inside of himself, and she had forced his issues to the surface. It couldn't be taken back. "If you're not ready to talk about her, we can talk about something else."

"I don't want to talk anymore. How many more minutes are left today?"

Ginny glanced at the clock. "Seventeen," she said.

He sat gracelessly onto the couch before turning to lounge, his feet on one arm, his hands folded behind his head on the other. "Well, prepare for a boring seventeen minutes, love. I'm going to take a nap."

She rolled her eyes at his petulance. "Please don't retreat, Draco. We were making such progress."

"No," he spat harshly, his legs swinging around and bringing him back to a stand with such agility that she hardly had time to process his movement. "This wasn't progress for _us_. This was progress for you, for the bloody Wizengamot, for everyone ibut/i me. And what have you got out of our conversation? Your idea of proof that I've got daddy issues? I'm not doing this anymore. I'm done with talking to you. You're of no use to me."

"Well, like it or not, Draco, I am your ticket out of the hellhole that you're living in," Ginny answered, getting to her feet, eyes matching his glare for glare. "You're living in a cell. You come out of it for our sessions only, and until I tell the Wizengamot that I believe you're no longer a threat to yourself and to society, you'll continue this way. So either you will fall in line and do as I ask, or you can continue to spend your life in Azkaban."

For a brief moment, she was certain that he would hit her, push her, physically hurt her in some way, but he held his ground, allowing himself the opportunity to intimidate her, if only for the briefest of moments.

And then he sat back down and reclined back to how he had been moments earlier. "How many minutes now?"

"Fourteen."

"Less of a nap, but still worthwhile," he quipped, allowing his eyes to close.

"Draco, I know something happened to you as a child that made you feel insignificant to your parents, and I know that you've had a tough life even though you like to pretend that you have always been happy." She sat on the edge of the sofa where he had been lying. "Wouldn't you feel relieved to get that off your chest?"

He opened his eyes but did not move otherwise. "How about I shrink you for the next… thirteen minutes then? How about you sit here and I'll take the big comfy chair and you can tell me all about your life?"

"Sure," she said, nudging him to vacate the space on the sofa. "Ask me anything."

Draco picked up a notebook and the reading glasses that Ginny kept on her end table before taking a seat in her chair. "Don't worry, love, I've opened to a blank page," he said, knowing it would not be in his best interest to read her confidential patient notes. "Now then, tell me, how old were you when you first got stuffed?"

Ginny's eyes opened wide. "Why do you want to know that?"

"You said I could ask you anything." He squinted thoughtfully. "And while we're at it, tell me who it was that you let between your legs."

She rolled her eyes. "It was… it was Dean Thomas when I was fifteen," she said.

"Did your brothers know about it?"

Ginny laughed despite herself. "Dean is still alive, isn't he?"

"Surely you've shagged Potter, also?"

She took a breath. "Yes, I slept with Harry, but not until after I finished school."

"Why so long?" Draco asked, almost genuinely curious. "You'd already done the deed, so why did you wait?"

Ginny shrugged. "I'm not sure, actually. I guess it was timing. We were only together for a short while before he left for my sixth year, and when he came back and we got back together, the world was so wrecked. I had my own wounds that needed healing before I would be ready for intimacy."

"You're so formal about it."

"It's important to me," she said, if a little indignantly. "Sex isn't a game, and I'd prefer not to treat it as such."

Draco gave her a brief look of incredulousness. "So what were your problems then?"

"Excuse me?"

"You said that you had your own problems at the end of the War. What were they?"

She bit her lip. "Well, Fred died, for starters, and so did a lot of others who were close to me. Professor Lupin, Tonks, Colin… so many people who had become a part of my life were suddenly ripped from it. Death had never been so real to me."

Draco swallowed visibly again. "I suppose that's something that I can relate to. How… how did you deal with it?"

Ginny smiled at him. "I had help," she said sincerely. "I spent a lot of time talking to my parents and my other brothers, to Harry, to friends. But it wasn't always easy for me, and I did some pretty reckless things that I'm not proud of."

"Like what?"

"Like drinking a whole bottle of Firewhisky at midnight and flying off into the night on my broom."

He snorted and then sobered immediately. "What else?"

"Some less stupid things. I would write letters to Fred every night and tell him about my day, and then a few times a week I would go to his grave and read them to him." She bit her lip. "I was never really one to cry, but every time I went there, I'd lose control of myself. In a strange way, that spot was my safe haven. It was the only place I could go and be myself."

"Do you still visit him?"

"Yes. But not as often as I did back then."

"Why not? You said it was helping you."

She leaned forward and shook her head solemnly. "No, actually, going to his grave almost every day was nearly the opposite of progress. Grief is a very natural reaction to bad things happening, and everyone needs to experience it in their own way, but it is something that is so easy to lose yourself in, and eventually it stops being healthy. That's what visiting my brother had become for me after a while."

There was silence for a long moment, and it stretched so thickly between them that it was almost tangible. They stared at each other, sensed each other, understood each other more than they ever had. She had finally broken through, had finally reached him, and it had happened on his own terms.

"Ginny?"

"Yes?" she asked, her voice matronly and comforting.

"Do you think that next time… that we can talk about you again?"

She smiled at him and nodded. "Only if you promise me that one day very soon you'll talk to me about yourself."

Draco's face remained solemn, still and without much emotion. But his lips quirked ever-so-slightly upwards, smiling at her with the utmost sincerity. His eyes were aglow with appreciation and the grief that he would one day allow himself to express. His hands remained motionless, showing Ginny for the first time that he was not uncomfortable sitting in the room across from her.

"I promise."

The timer went off, and suddenly his demeanor switched. His body tensed, his eyes darkened, and his hands were once again clasped in front of him. He waited patiently for the Azkaban guards to come as he knew they would, to remove him back to his cell. It would be three more days until he could see her again, until he could once again let himself feel some semblance of emotion.

He walked out, and she smiled slightly at her most enigmatic patient, not realizing or caring for a second that the fascination she felt was wearing thin. Slowly but surely, he had become a person in her eyes rather than the criminal that he had once been, and she knew in her heart that he would very soon be a free man… just as soon as he let go.

* * *

Thanks to Ash, Fire the Canon, for the beta!


End file.
